It seems that 2015 is truly the Year of the Amiibo for Nintendo. While many games were shown off on their latest Nintendo direct, many of the major ones had corresponding amiibo announcements. Let’s start with Super Smash Bros. news first though. The Mewtwo DLC is pretty much ready and will be released on April 23 for $3.99, or $5.99 for both systems. Those who earned the character for free via the Club Nintendo promotion will get him on April 15. Lucas (from Mother 3 and Brawl) was announced as the second DLC character, due sometime in June. Future characters may be influenced by your votes on the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot that just launched on smashbros.com. And if you want to spend more of your money, there will be new Mii costumes available. The cost of the costumes seems reasonable at $0.75 each, or $1.15 each for both systems. Read more…

Nintendo held their first Nintendo Direct of the year, announcing their upcoming games for the first half of the year. Sadly, there wasn’t much Wii U news, but that’s because of the 3DS focus, since there is a new piece of hardware. After an annoyingly long wait and well past the holiday shopping season, Nintendo is finally bringing the New 3DS to America after Japan (and strangely Australia) got to enjoy it. The system has improved head-tracking 3D, more power under the hood, a faster OS, Amiibo/NFC support, two more shoulder buttons, and a c-stick (right stick) nub. (An Amiibo adapter is expected for older 3DS models.) Read more…

So far, all the games that use Amiibo, the Skylanders-like toys that unlock in-game bonuses, are published by Nintendo. But the upcoming One Piece: Super Grand Battle! X for 3DS will be the first third-party game to include Amiibo support. The toys will unlock costumes for the various fighters that transform them into the same Nintendo characters. So tapping the Mario Amiibo will give main character Luffy a Mario outfit. These aren’t simple reskins, but fully-designed costumes that look more creative than I’d expect. The trailer below shows off the Smash Bros.-like fighting action, with the Amiibo details showing up near the end. Read more…

Miyamoto has been a spree recently, doing hype interviews for the holiday season and getting folks excited for Nintendo and their latest product: Amiibos. If you’ve been following the Amiibo story (or, even worse, trying to collect them all), you probably know that several Amiibos have already become nearly impossible to find, with no reprints or restocks in sight (Marth, Wii Fit Trainer, and Villager are the main culprits here). Prepare to pay $50 and up if you want them now! However, Miyamoto did mention in a recent AP interview that Nintendo has a way to cover this problem: trading cards. “[…] we have the option, if certain Amiibo figures are no longer available in stores, to release an Amiibo in card form with the same functionality.” This way, you can still get the unlocks and in-game content an Amiibo provides… but without the cool action figure part. Well, it’s something, I suppose. Read more…